My guess is he'll be charged & by the time all the evidence & witnesses are sorted out, it will look bad for Z & he'll take a lesser plea. Only thing good about all the furor is that it made 'em thoroughly investigate it...

My guess is he'll be charged & by the time all the evidence & witnesses are sorted out, it will look bad for Z & he'll take a lesser plea. Only thing good about all the furor is that it made 'em thoroughly investigate it...

No chance this guy pleas. If he goes to court at all.

Not with all of the media coverage, he is going to walk. Just like every other highly publicized case on earth. Where the burden of proof falls on the accuser, and there is simply not enough evidence, the shadow of a doubt looms large under the scrutiny of an entire nation.

Not with all of the media coverage, he is going to walk. Just like every other highly publicized case on earth. Where the burden of proof falls on the accuser, and there is simply not enough evidence, the shadow of a doubt looms large under the scrutiny of an entire nation.

I do not know much about a wrongful death suit (paging Dj)

According to Florida Statute 776.032 :

Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.— 776.032

A person who uses force as permitted in s. (1) 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer. As used in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.

A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful. (2)

Absent the most compelling evidence coming to light, no way an attorney advises him to plea. Take a chance with a jury and further, avoid the onset of a civil suit that would arise from a plea.

In most cases like this I'd agree, but here I think it would probably depend on the actual charge that was brought & how well the defense team thought Z's credibility would hold up in court. Two key factors beyond the severity of the injuries would be how credible/believable the girlfriend is thought to be about their call & how strong the voice experts testimony (saying it is not Z's voice) would be since the dead can really only speak thru forensics & that would probably be admissable. If believed by the jury, both would show Zimmerman to have lied in both instances which would blow his credibility to hell -

Well that will be interesting to see if that can be established. I would assume there are some audio recordings of Trayvon that can be found. Maybe some voicemails or something that can be compared. Doesn't sound like that has been analyzed yet, but hopefully it can be.

Depeche,

in order for a voice analysis to have any validity, the "matched" voice would have to have the same pitch as it is being compared to. From the guy who was in the Orlando paper:

The speech must be the same as the speech on the evidence in order for the testing to be accurate. As an audio forensic expert, I often have to coach the accused into the same energetic voice tone and inflection as the evidence recording.